Collaborative Product Evaluations
Introducing Ideas International's Collaborative Product Evaluations – the first online system for performing detailed technology comparisons with the transparency of an open source process.
Find Out Which Technology Best Meets Your Needs – Just by Registering
IT managers making investment decisions must frequently weigh a broad set of functional tradeoffs between similar products in order to make a choice that best meets their needs. IDEAS's Collaborative Product Evaluation process helps users determine which products best meet their specific product requirements -- without the bias of vendors, users, or experts. Any user can view or submit ratings just by registering -- no fees apply!
See the Source
The IDEAS Collaborative Product Evaluation process applies the open source concept to in-depth functional evaluations. Rather than relying on hidden methodologies and proprietary data, our approach harnesses the collective knowledge of the IT community to arrive at transparent assessments of technology products.
Grade and Compare
Products at
Arbitrary Levels of Detail
The Collaborative Product Evaluation system represents product capabilities as a hierarchical taxonomy of features, allowing a set of products to be compared at an arbitrary level of detail. Any visitor can submit ratings for functional details of a product, representing his or her assessment of the quality of that function's implementation. Because ratings can only be submitted for specific functions rather than entire products, the system draws out deep expertise of contributing users, rather than merely measuring general allegiances toward particular products or vendors.
Qualify Ratings through Distributed Moderation
Submitted ratings are qualified through distributed moderation, whereby a select subset of community members are automatically given the opportunity to moderate ratings of other users. Members with moderation privileges can increase or lower the credibility of a rating based on its explanation. Other visitors can then adjust the credibility threshold at which they want to see ratings.
Customize Outputs Based on Your
Own Functional Priorities
Visitors who register with the Collaborative Product Evaluation system can assign weights to any level of functionality, representing the importance of that functional capability in their particular environment. These weights are used to composite detail ratings into customized summary ratings for each product, reflecting the suitability of each product for a particular user's requirements.
Learn Which Features Users Value Most
Sponsoring vendors gain full visibility of the priority levels that users assign to features in the sponsored evaluation site. This information provides valuable insight into which features users truly consider important, independent of any filtering that might arise in internal studies.
Get an Honest Glimpse of the Market
Vendors gain insight into the true capabilities of products, without any marketing spin, both in their own offerings and in those of their competitors.
Structure the Evaluation
to Match Your Focus
Sponsoring vendors work directly with IDEAS on structuring the evaluations and processing the results. As such, vendors can provide input on the high-level functional categories and specific features that should be included in the evaluation site.
See Continuous Improvements to Your Products Reflected in the Evaluation
For the duration of the sponsorship, IDEAS will update the evaluation site to reflect the sponsor's new product releases. IDEAS will add features that are introduced by new product releases, and back-fill the analyst's baseline ratings of those features in competing products.
Showcase Your Strengths
Sponsoring vendors can leverage CPE data and IDEAS's core capabilities to produce custom outcomes and deliverables that are unique to their needs. Utilizing IDEAS's existing data sources in addition to CPE, as well as the deep technical research, analysis methodologies, and expertise of IDEAS analysts, sponsors can engage in Custom Consulting Services to meet their specific project requirements.
